Applying Behavioural Science to UX Design — Part 1 of 2

A two-part series on the challenges of applying behavioural science to UX design, and our attempts at resolving some of these challenges.

Are you interested in exploring how the ‘science’ of psychology can add to the ‘art’ of design, especially UX design? Judging by the many new articles exploring this new intersection — ranging from “psychology of design” to “UX Design Psychology” — you’re definitely not alone. The design community is starting to pay much more attention to understanding user psychology.

In our UX team, we’re also interested in exploring this new frontier. A better understanding of the psychology of our citizens can lead to more informed designs of our products & services. I’m particularly interested in the behavioural aspects of this field; after all, a user’s behaviour is the most direct and tangible expression of how they experience our products.

The rise of behavioural science

Behavioural science, and how it applies to people’s daily habits or choices and decisions, has been steadily gaining popularity amongst the general public. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow and Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational are two great books that explain human behaviour and choices. Kahneman’s central thesis is that there are two systems for decision-making: System 1 is fast, automatic, frugal; System 2 is slower, deliberate, and effortful. System 1, because it is fast and frugal, makes choices that may not be ‘rational’. Ariely describes how these ‘irrational choices’ actually have a systematic pattern. The context in which information is presented and the choice has to be made can shift users’ behaviour in predictable ways.

Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast & Slow, and Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational (Source: Amazon)

What’s interesting is that behavioural science has made the leap from ‘casual academic interest’ into the world of ‘policy-making’ and ‘public service delivery’. Around the world, government officials have embarked on experiments to apply the principles of behavioural science into the design of public policy & services, led most notably by the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team. Understanding that people take reference from what other people do in the same situation, they sent a letter to UK residents who owed taxes a letter that included the statement, “9 out of 10 people in Britain pay their tax on time”. This resulted in a 15 percentage-point increase in the number of people who paid their taxes. In real world terms, this meant collecting back about £160 million of tax debts! Governments around the world have since become interested in behavioural science, and similar results have been replicated in countries as diverse as Guatemala, Australia, and Singapore.

(Bad news: The US Social and Behavioural Science Team no longer appears to be active. Good news: Maya Shankar, who led that team, is now head of Behavioural Insights at Google.)

Applying behavioural science to service design

Richard Thaler, one of today’s biggest names in the field of behavioural science, was recently awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel “for his contributions to behavioural economics”. When he received the award, he was asked to describe the most successful applications of behavioural science he had seen. Thaler cited two examples:

1. Automatic enrolments in pension plans
2. Inviting people to commit themselves to save in the future, without having to put aside any money immediately

Thinking a little more about these two examples, we find that they share a common underlying principle: people like procrastinating. However, the nature of each application is quite different:

1. In automatic enrolment, we have changed the act of choosing to sign up to a savings plan from an active choice to an automatic one. We remove any opportunity for procrastination.
2. In committing to save in the future, we have changed the structure of the savings plan from an immediate, painful act to a delayed, painless one. We ask people to commit to save, but allow them to procrastinate that saving act to sometime later.

In the first, we’re changing how people make the choice to save. In the second, we’re changing what we’re asking people to choose. Both examples are an application of the same behavioural principle. However, we can see that they lead to quite different designs of the savings plan.

One behavioural principle, two different design interventions

The challenge of translating research into practice

However, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and we want to avoid mis-applying concepts that may have very real consequences on the lives of our citizens. The problem is that the body of behavioural science knowledge is huge. The key challenge of any designer tasked to “try to use some behavioural science in your design process” is to first understand enough of these behavioural principles, and then figuring out how they may be applied to the design of business processes and digital products.

So, what’s next?

I’ll be putting together a practical guide to understanding when to apply what kinds of behavioural concepts to each part of the UX Design process!

If you’re also thinking about how to better use behavioural science to inform UX design, I’d love to hear from you on what you’ve done to tackle this problem!

Many thanks to Edison, Hugo, and Hazel for their support & valuable comments!